How Can We Gain Knowledge of the Supersensible Worlds?

Schmidt Number: S-2731

On-line since: 8th December, 2010

How Can We Gain Knowledge of the Supersensible Worlds?

A Rudolf Steiner Archive Document

Single Lecture

The lecture presented here was given in Dornach on March 9, 1913,
and has not been assigned a GA Number. The only known publication
of this lecture is in this Anthroposophic News Sheet, and now,
on-line at the Rudolf Steiner Archive. The translator is unknown.

A lecture by
Rudolf Steiner
Dornach, March 9, 1913
Bn/GA#/CW Unknown

The lecture presented here was given in Dornach on March 9, 1913,
and has not been assigned a GA Number. The only known publication
of this lecture is in this Anthroposophic News Sheet, and now,
on-line at the Rudolf Steiner Archive. The translator is unknown.

This English edition is published in agreement with, and the kind
permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach,
Switzerland.

Copyright and all other
Rights of reproduction and translation reserved by
General Anthroposophic Society, Dornach, Switzerland.
Responsibility for the contents of the articles in
the “Anthroposophic News Sheet” attaches
only to the writers.

HOW CAN WE GAIN
KNOWLEDGE OF THE SUPERSENSIBLE WORLDS?

Lecture by Dr. Rudolf Steiner

9 March, 1913

[From
stenographic notes unrevised by the lecturer.]

The subject of
today's lecture sets out from a question which is often asked by
people who have perhaps heard superficially of spiritual science
and spiritual investigation, for led by the conceptions and
habits of thought ruling in the present time, they cannot think
how it is possible to draw knowledge from the super-sensible
worlds.

We have frequently
emphasized that a person standing upon the foundation of
spiritual research can best of all understand the objections
raised from an external standpoint. Indeed one can say that if
the conceptions advanced by a spiritual investigator were to meet
the approval of wider circles, this would be far more surprising
than if they were to give rise to the greatest possible
opposition … for they must give rise to antagonism! This
fact is explained by the whole of today's civilization and by the
whole development of the external economic life during past
centuries. Moreover, we have frequently emphasized that spiritual
science always fully recognizes the results achieved for the
whole of civilization by natural science, and the
natural-scientific mentality depends on the fact that the Spirit
of the Time has — if we may use this expression —
turned away for a while from the spiritual world. (In the course
of human evolution “a while” is long and may last for
centuries!) This is evident through the fact that it is the
physical world which induces people to think, so that they adopt
a mentality which is not accustomed to the contemplation of the
spiritual world. But this is not the only reason which induces
people to oppose spiritual science; this antagonism is due to
other, deeper causes. The subject of today's lecture —
“How can we gain Knowledge of the Supersensible
Worlds?” — therefore seems very appropriate.

The very first
requirement is that the human being should recognize through
self-knowledge that he is a super-sensible being and be able to
understand his own super-sensible nature. But there are many
things in the psychic life of modern man connected with the
cultural achievements of the present time, and of humanity as a
whole, which are a serious handicap to real self-knowledge.

In regard to his
soul, the human being is never alone with it, yet he should be
able to face his soul in complete solitude if he really wishes to
understand its innermost being. Consciously, he is never quite
alone with his soul. Yet there is a kind of solitude which arises
when the human being passes over to that condition in which he
does not use his external limbs but leaves them to the earth's
force of gravity, and when he commands his memory and his
intellect bound up with the senses to stand still. This is the
case every day, when he falls asleep. The objection raised
against the spiritual-scientific statement or truth that when the
human being is asleep his bodily organization does not reveal
anything that might explain the processes surging up and down
within his soul until he wakes up again — that the bodily
processes do not in any way explain what takes place in the soul
during sleep — this will be unreservedly recognized by
natural science in a comparatively short time. Natural science
will admit that the soul's content dives down into the bodily
organization at the moment of waking up, in the same way in which
the air which we inhale becomes a part of our own body. And the
same thing can be said of the moment in which we fall asleep,
when the soul's content abandons the body. From the moment of
falling asleep to the moment of waking up, we therefore confront
a being which is severed from the bodily structure and which does
not offer us any instruments enabling us to observe this
fact.

We can therefore
say that the sleeping soul is in a certain sense isolated; that
is to say, it is not connected with the external world through
the intellect, the senses, and memory, as is the human being when
he is awake. But in normal life, we lose consciousness when we
fall asleep, and we must therefore say that in this isolated
state of the soul the human being is not able to observe the soul
that inhabits his body. It is this circumstance which renders a
real self-knowledge impossible to ordinary people.

But the following
question can be raised: Is it nevertheless possible to attain to
real self-knowledge?

It will be of help
to consider another condition of the soul. The fact which will
now be advanced is not meant as an analogy, but as an aid
enabling us to envisage the reality of the soul's condition
between sleeping and waking. It is not an analogy, but an
explanation pointing to the real facts. This is the SOUL
CONDITION OF THE SEASONS OF THE YEAR.

In the Spring the
vegetable world springs up, the uplifting world of Nature filling
us with joy. In the Spring we see the plants springing up, in the
summer we see them growing and flourishing, in the autumn we see
them fade way (with the exception of evergreen plants) and in the
winter Nature takes them back into her bosom, so that their
growth and development cannot be perceived.

Let us now suppose
that with the coming of Spring the human being were able to
obtain another state of consciousness; his consciousness would be
dulled, and as summer advances it would grow more unconscious
— only when Nature begins to fade and to decay he would
wake up again. Human consciousness would therefore be slumbering
on that part of the earth where summer holds sway, but in that
case the human being would never gain knowledge of the
germinating, flowering plants round about him. The plants which
cover the earth during the summer would remain an unknown world
to a person or a being endowed with human qualities, a world
which his senses could not perceive, a super-sensible world.

Now we have
something in human life which really corresponds to this. Those
who penetrate more deeply into things will not look upon it as a
mere analogy, but as a reality — the reality which thus
confronts us in the WHOLE NATURE OF THE HUMAN BEING.

What is the
sleeping human being that can be physically perceived by our
senses? Though outwardly and substantially he may differ from a
plant, he is inwardly of the same value as a plant, for a plant's
development attains the stage of life, but not that of
consciousness, not even the consciousness of animals. Sleeping
man therefore resembles a plant, but under different life
conditions.

In regard to
certain forces which influence the human being, he appears to us,
in his plant-like condition of sleep, similar to the earth during
summer, when the sun with its forces of heat and of light draws
the plants out of the soil. We know that we fall asleep when our
strength is worn out by the day's work. We also know that sleep
restores our worn-out strength by drawing forces out of the
depths of life.

The same process
takes place in the cosmos. If we discard old habits of thinking,
we gradually learn to know that sleep is in the real meaning of
the word, and not analogously, the SOUL'S SUMMERTIME.

From the moment of
falling asleep to the moment of waking up, we pass through the
soul's summer.

But when we are
awake, the day's work, and particularly our efforts of thought
and the soul forces expended on thought, demolish the plant-like
processes. Does not man's waking condition resemble autumn and
winter which obliterate from the surface of the earth the plants
which the summer produced? Our waking hours are the soul's winter
season. This is not an analogy. It is easy to maintain the
external analogy so as to discover certain similarities, but this
would be a superficial way of considering things. We must look
upon things from within, in an intimate way.

If we wish to
observe ourselves, we cannot find the same access to our being
during the soul's summer season as during its winter season, but
we lose ourselves as the summertime advances. For if we could
observe what forces are at work in order to produce a
germinating, growing life, we would really have to grow
unconscious. In fact, we are not able to observe the soul; we
seem to lose our consciousness in spring and regain it only in
the autumn.

We can therefore
say that self-knowledge is only possible if the hidden side of
man's being can be revealed.

Let us now
consider the characteristics of the soul's wintertime; that is to
say, of the waking condition. During our waking condition, the
soul is filled with emotions, resolutions, thoughts, ideals, and
so forth. If we survey all this, we must say that we experience
it only in part. For let us only take human thought outside the
whole compass of human soul life: How does the human being
experience the soul's wintertime, if he wishes to fulfill his
tasks in the external physical world? He is interested in his
world of thoughts, in everything which he obtains through
thinking, only to the extent of asking: What external realities
do thoughts reflect? What value should be attributed to thoughts,
as images of reality? This constitutes, to begin with, his chief
interest.

The whole life of
the soul is directed towards this chief interest: to develop THIS
side of the soul. Other things have far less importance in the
so-called normal life. Can one, however, not attribute to
thoughts another value than that which consists in merely
reflecting something like a picture in the mirror? Those who only
wish to attribute this one-sided value to thought (and most
people do), are in the same position of an artist who only sees
what his work of art is to represent. Yet in the production of a
work of art something quite different takes place than a mere
representation: something takes place within the soul. Art could
not play such an important part in the development of humanity if
it did not constantly bear the soul along the path of progress,
if it were not a seed which takes root in the soul, thus enabling
it to have new experiences and changing it into something quite
different from what it was before it looked upon the work of
art.

The soul does not
advance by a one-sided pedagogical, pedantic contemplation of
works of art, but by recognizing the laws of human development
which are contained in art. Those who only recognize the validity
of thought in regard to things which it mirrors and represents,
resemble people who only look upon a work of art from the aspect
of what it sets forth. The human soul is accustomed to look upon
thought as a mere representation. The value of truth is
determined by the value of reality grasped by thought. Thoughts
which do not aim at this are generally rejected. Philosophy, for
instance, has a right to adopt this attitude; but let us ask
whether such concepts really grasp reality, whether they refer to
something real.

There is another
way of looking upon thought: it can be measured in accordance
with its value as an inner means of self-education. There are
thoughts which do not reproduce an external reality, but they are
able to advance the soul inwardly. Thoughts of this kind should
be taken into consideration when the soul really sets out upon
the path of self-knowledge.

We have frequently
explained that when we immerse ourselves in thoughts which do not
represent an external reality, we may designate them as
MEDITATION, CONCENTRATION, or CONTEMPLATION. What does this mean?
That we call into being a soul condition which resembles that of
sleep. It means that the soul does not use its external members,
is not incited by the senses, but by a strong will power, by
— one might say — a negative attention which rejects
the experiences brought by the normal daytime consciousness. This
is a condition which is radically different from that of sleep,
because the soul remains fully conscious of itself and is filled
by a definite thought, and when the soul is thus immersed in this
thought, fully concentrated upon it, it is immersed in
concentration or contemplation.

It is not easy to
produce this condition; careful and systematic exercises are
needed for it. But it kindles in the soul the light of an
entirely new life. When this condition has reached the stage of
maturity, the soul feels that dormant forces awaken within it.
For this reason the thought itself is not the essential thing in
meditation, but the essential thing is to practice CONCENTRATION,
to concentrate fully upon this thought. This is the same as
training the muscles by physical exercises; they develop by
physical training. In the case of the ordinary forces of the
soul, thought training exercises are of no importance, for new
forces have to be drawn out of the soul's depths, forces which
render the soul stronger and more elastic; for instance, that
part of the soul has to be drawn out which only re-echoes faintly
in our ordinary waking life. Consequently the CONTENT of thought
is not the essential thing; the essential thing is that the soul
should be ACTIVE, that through this activity it should call into
life forces which exist in ordinary life, but in a dormant state.
This training shows us that the soul can also exist independently
without having to rely on the physical body; a condition arises
which resembles that of sleep, though it is radically different
from sleep.

Why is sleep an
unconscious state during our ordinary life? Because the soul's
inner life is so weak and concealed that we cannot perceive it.
But when these forces awaken, the soul can become aware of itself
even when it is not dependent on the body.

We now experience
that the soul is really able to face its summer season
consciously. The content of our thoughts is now experienced in an
entirely different way. In the ordinary course of the day, our
thoughts are like grains of corn which the farmer gathers on the
field. If they are used as nourishment, they only reach a certain
stage of development. But when they are gathered, they do not
differ from the grains which are to be used as seed. Thus the
ordinary thoughts which we experience during the soul's winter
form the soul's spiritual content. They fill the soul, they are
like the grains of corn which are used as nourishment. But the
thoughts which form the subject of meditation and concentration
resemble the grains of corn which are used as seed; dormant
forces are drawn out of them, which germinate and grow.

Ordinarily we only
learn to know one side of the influence of thought. But through
meditation and concentration our thoughts take root in the life
of the soul, and their activity changes, for they begin to
germinate and grow. We now experience consciously things which we
otherwise experience unconsciously during the soul's summertime;
a new world arises, the so-called imaginative world. The fruit of
our efforts now rises up before the soul and the soul's summer is
raised into consciousness, so that we live through it differently
than during our normal life, for the experiences which normally
glide down into unconsciousness now begin to germinate and grow
just as if plants were to grow out of single grains of corn
during the winter.

We must learn to
know this other aspect of our being which reveals the soul in its
fruitfulness, in its greening, sprouting life. Thought will
otherwise maintain the character of a mere representation, but it
begins to germinate and grow if we do not treat it as a mere
image, if we look upon it as a seed which can germinate.

Self-knowledge
then enables us to call up in our consciousness the soul's
summertime.

Even as we first
assumed that springtime dulls the consciousness and that a new
world arises during the summer, so the soul is now able to survey
a new world, which it did not know before. A world, which
otherwise would remain concealed, grows out of the soul's living
foundation if we do not remain standing halfway, but use our
thoughts as seeds. Meditation, concentration and contemplation
simply imply that our thoughts and feelings (for this is also
possible through feeling) are able to develop forces which
otherwise remain dormant and unknown; that is to say, a new world
rises up before us.

Many things work
against us if we incessantly strive to produce this world. It is
a requirement of human nature that when we enter the summer time
of the soul, we must above all maintain within the soul a certain
winter constitution if we wish to be capable human beings in life
and in ordinary science. This is a necessity in external life,
for otherwise we cannot be capable human beings. We should also
have confidence in our thinking, for we cannot find our way in
the world unless confidence is our starting point; that is to
say, unless we confidently believe that we can be guided by our
thinking and can trust in the guidance of our thought. Imagine
what consequences would arise if there were worlds in which we
could not rely upon our thinking! This would shatter us; it would
deprive us of every capacity. Human beings must be able to rely
on thought; they must have this belief in thought … no
matter where they may land with it.

Everything has its
light and dark side. But where we need light, we do not take into
consideration the shadows. We train our thought in the sensory
world; the physical world is our teacher. It is not the physical
world which teaches us to rely on thought in itself; from the
physical world we learn to rely on a kind of thinking which finds
its support in the external sensory world. From the very outset,
we are thus not accustomed to look upon thought as an instrument
which is able to lead us in every sphere of life. And we lose our
confidence; we begin to feel uncertain whenever we come across
something which does not approach us in the customary way.

It is this which
induces people to take up a negative attitude towards spiritual
science. We can understand this, and, as stated, no objection can
be raised against it; on the contrary, our contemporaries are
quite helpless. But the true cause of their attitude is the fact
that their thought has been trained by observing the physical
world. In regard to spiritual science, it is as if they were to
enter a world which is not the physical world, but with
capacities acquired by living in the physical world which trains
external thought. This explains the attitude towards realms which
are different from those which can be grasped by ordinary
external thought. When people are confronted by the super-sensible
worlds, they feel that their confidence in thought is
imperiled.

There is another
thing which characterizes the soul's winter, or the ordinary
waking condition. We know that the habits of thinking during the
past centuries gave rise to materialism, or — to use a
nobler term, which is, however, a mistaken designation —
monism. This world conception can, however, only be applied to
the external world, to the external aspects of life. Spiritual
science shows us that the spirit lives behind everything, and if
one penetrates into external things one can discover the spirit
everywhere.

If the soul has
passed through a conscientious training, as explained above, a
point is reached where we pass through extraordinary soul
experiences, which show us why we come to materialism, monism,
and so forth. When we feel a new world springing up within us (as
described in my book KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS), a
certain moment arises in which the soul has the same feeling
towards this new world as towards the physical world. This
means that when we observe things in the super-sensible world, we
should develop the capacity to turn our attention towards them in
full freedom and then to turn our gaze away from them just as
freely.

Imagine what it
would be like if we were not able to turn our gaze away at will
from the objects of the physical world, if they fascinated us to
such an extent that we could not look away even if we wished.
This would be the situation of a soul who could not turn away
from the things which rise up before it as a result of exercises
or through its own faculties.

In the
super-sensible world, however, we cannot turn our gaze away from
the objects in the same way in which we turn away from things in
the physical world. This does not suffice. It should be
remembered that the spiritual investigator must be able to
obliterate and cancel every new soul content which he produces.
In the spiritual world this is the same as turning away our gaze
from the physical objects in the physical world.

This is the
radical difference between the spiritual investigator and people
who have hallucinations, visions and fixed ideas, which they
obstinately consider to be objective realities. A spiritual
investigator cannot admit such things. He must be aware of the
fact that he is only conjuring up shadow images and that he must
blot them out again from his spiritual vision. The capacity to
obliterate such images pertains to a definite stage of
development. One can see how greedily the soul clings to its
fixed ideas and images and to blot them out is one of the most
difficult things of all!

Why? —
Because not only the forces already described develop and grow,
but also other forces which normally are quite weak. There is ONE
force in particular which grows with the development of the other
one; namely, SELFISHNESS, the self-love which exists in ordinary
life. It grows like a force of Nature. In ordinary life our moral
forces can overcome selfishness, but they cannot overcome forces
of Nature, such as thunder or lightning! This increased self-love
or selfishness appears within the soul as if it were a force of
Nature, an elemental force. The soul development leading to
spiritual investigation must consequently bring with it also the
capacity to overcome this enhanced selfishness, which lives
within the soul like a force of Nature that fetters the soul. The
soul's ordinary forces do not suffice for this; they cannot
overcome it.

At this point we
come across a deeply stirring phenomenon, which appears from the
very outset. It may take on various forms, but it is justified to
designate it as the APPROACH TO THE THRESHOLD OF DEATH. We feel
as if that part which we call our Ego or the soul were torn away
from us as if by lightning, taken away from us. Everything which
formerly appeared to be connected with us now seems to be severed
from us. Our own self appears like a Being outside; we face it in
the same way in which we confront an object of the external
world.

Though it is easy
to describe this in words, it is one of the most stirring
experiences which we can have. The ground under our feet seems to
vanish. Everything which constituted our thoughts and feelings is
surrendered, given up. But if we succeed in remaining steadfast,
we shall be borne over a kind of abyss. This experience awakens a
feeling which lived in us in a dormant state and which must now
rise to the surface: it is the FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN.

The spiritual
world is always present, but we do not know it, and at this
moment we confront it as if it were a void. This gives rise to a
feeling of fear. But if we proceed regularly along the spiritual
path, we should not think that we are in any way endangered by
this experience. It forms part of self-education, for we must
acquire the strength to bear the sight of the spiritual world
— we develop the strength and steadfastness enabling us to
bear its sight. In ordinary life we are protected against it and
we speak of a GUARDIAN OF THE THRESHOLD.

The fact that
ordinarily we are not conscious of such things does not prove
that they do not exist within the soul. The soul is a twofold
being: within its depths it often presents an entirely different
aspect from the one which we know. We may, for instance, hate a
person and be conscious of this feeling, yet our hate may simply
be the cloak of love and we daze ourselves because this love
cannot come to full expression. Not only Faust, but every human
being, has two souls.

A soul
investigator may come across the following: In ordinary life the
human being finds support and strength by checking the fear that
lives in his subconsciousness. But a spiritual investigator
cannot fail to see the fear which always lives in the soul's
depths. He enters the spiritual world by overcoming this fear. If
this fear rises to the surface without entering human
consciousness, if it knocks at the door, as it were, and a person
ignores it in spite of all, what takes place and what enables
that person to overlook this feeling? He pushes down fear, as it
were, by denying the existence of the spiritual world.

Materialists and
monists are therefore afraid of the spiritual world; this fear
lives in their soul's depth and their materialism dazes them, so
that they do not notice it. This is a strange phenomenon;
nevertheless it is true that materialism is based upon an
unknown, unnamed fear. Of course, it cannot be pleasant for them
to hear from a spiritual investigator that monists and
materialists speak as they do because they are tormented by fear.
But to a real observation this connection between materialism and
fear will be clearly evident.

We learn to
confront the physical world by training thought through the
observation of physical things. This gives us confidence in our
thinking power and we ignore our subconscious fear. But this also
prevents us from entering the super-sensible world.

A twofold soul
condition must therefore be developed if we wish to enter the
super-sensible world: on the one hand we should rise to the state
of being existing in the spiritual world and on the other hand we
should be able to blot it out; that is to say, when we return to
the physical world we must push into the background everything
that constitutes our field of vision in the super-sensible world.
For if we mix up these two worlds we become dreamers, false
mystics, and so forth and can never become spiritual
investigators.

Strength of soul
should enable us to keep these worlds apart, but at the same time
we should be able to connect physical things with super-sensible
things, because the foundation of the physical world lies in the
super-sensible world. This characterizes a spiritual
investigator.

It is necessary,
for this same reason, that a spiritual investigator should raise
into his consciousness, in the soul's summer and winter time,
what is normally concealed by sleep. If he fails to do this, he
will at every moment fall a prey to the above-mentioned fear.

When we enter the
spiritual world we do not only perceive a vague soul-spiritual
element, but definite objects, facts and beings which are just as
differentiated as the things pertaining to the physical world.
Modern people find it so difficult to accept this. They do not
forgive the spiritual investigator for seeing a spiritual reality
consisting of differentiated beings.

A well-known man,
such as Charles Elliot of Harvard University, once declared that
he could find a spiritual element behind the physical-sensory
world, but that the human being is always distinct and separate
from his body. If the spiritual investigator now declares that
self-training, of the kind described above, leads to the
perception of DIFFERENTIATED spiritual beings that form a cosmos,
people reject this. But if one were to tell Charles Elliot that
whenever he sees the vegetable world or observes single plants
this is nothing but Nature, Nature, and Nature, or that when he
studies various substances in his laboratory these substances are
“Nature, nothing but ‘Nature’,” he would
come to no result whatever! People tolerate spiritual science if
it limits itself to speaking of the spirit in general, but they
do not tolerate it if it begins to speak of definite objects and
beings pertaining to the spiritual world. But even as the
physical world appears differentiated to our sensory organs, so
the spiritual world has differentiated beings, even though they
do not possess a physical body.

When we learn to
know the spiritual world, it therefore presents a differentiated
aspect. As stated, SELF EXPERIENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD is
needed in order to recognize it, or even to admit its existence.
The stirring experience mentioned above produces the result that
everything which constitutes our Ego separates from us and that
otherwise dormant forces awaken within us. Our soul-spiritual
being that helps to build up our physical body and unites itself
with the hereditary stream, with everything that comes to us from
father and mother, separates from us, and this separation is a
deeply stirring, significant experience. A new being then comes
to life within us and we realize that the Being which passes
through birth and death is not that part of our being which we
ordinarily look upon as our own Self! We now experience that part
of our being described by spiritual science, the eternal part
which passes through REPEATED LIVES ON EARTH.

We now face the
prospect of solving the problem of infinity in a concrete way,
for without such a solution we confront an infinity extending
beyond our vision. Infinity comprises single lives on earth.
Insight into the super-sensible worlds and knowledge of these
worlds can only be acquired along the path described above.
People who think that a really satisfactory knowledge can be
gained along some other path follow a wrong direction which does
not lead to the stirring soul experiences described above. For
they wish to acquire super-sensible truths which are really
physical facts, truths pertaining to the physical world, but this
does not lead them to real knowledge. One can therefore see how
difficult it is for modern people to acquire a true knowledge of
the super-sensible even for the best of our contemporaries. Here
we can only adopt Schopenhauer's standpoint, who says that to
begin with truth takes on a paradoxical form, for this has always
been its lot. People now adopt the same attitude towards
spiritual science as they once did towards Galileo, Giordano
Bruno, and Copernicus. We must take it for granted that spiritual
science necessarily encounters the same obstacles. Giordano Bruno
said that the blue vault of heaven was not a boundary, as was
generally believed. This made natural science progress immensely.
Spiritual science is in the same situation today. There are no
boundaries of birth (or conception) and death, even as the blue
vault of heaven is not a boundary. Giordano Bruno, though he
realized the limitations of human knowledge, showed that one can
look into infinity and envisage infinite worlds in the infinite
firmament. The spiritual scientist must now speak in a similar
way. He sets forth truths pertaining to the super-sensible worlds.
But our contemporaries find it difficult to understand such
truths. They can see that the teaching of repeated lives on earth
can really throw light upon human destiny, and they realize that
this conception gives courage and strength, for it shows that
death does not blot out the human being, but that he can find
himself again in future lives on earth. Many of our
contemporaries can see this. Nevertheless they expect proofs
supporting this truth, proofs which must be advanced in a
different way from the one described above and they reject
everything which is set forth from the super-sensible aspect.

A modern writer
who really tried to penetrate into the super-sensible sphere and
who showed this in many of his writings, recently also occupied
himself with the teaching designated as that of repeated lives on
earth. This writer is Maurice Maeterlinck. Further down I will
quote a passage from his book “ON DEATH.” Maeterlinck
has no idea where the proofs for super-sensible truths should be
sought, and so he designates this teaching as a mere belief, as
mere faith.

Spiritual science,
however, has nothing to do with beliefs and dogmas. The
Copernican world conception can be accepted independently of any
belief, because it is science. In the same way spiritual science,
like Copernicanism, does not come into conflict with any faith.
Yet Maeterlinck looks upon it as a belief and the teaching of
repeated lives on earth is to him something which can also be
found in certain religions, as Metempsychosis. Yet spiritual
science speaks of something quite different! It speaks of the
REPEATED LIVES ON EARTH. In his book on death Maeterlinck
writes:

... “There never
existed a belief more beautiful, just, pure, moral and consoling,
and in a certain sense a more probable belief than theirs. Only
the teaching of universal atonement and purification of all
bodily and spiritual imperfections can explain every social error
and all the injustice in human destinies which so often make us
feel indignant. But the strength of a BELIEF does not prove its
truth. Although six millions of people adhere to it, although it
approaches the darkness of man's origins more than any other and
is the only one which is not filled with hatred, although it is
the least absurd of all religions, it should have given us what
the others failed to bring: irrefragable witnesses. So far it has
only given us the first shadow of a first testimony.”

In the first
place, spiritual science has nothing to do with religion; it is a
world conception like Copernicanism. Spiritual science is never
in contrast with any religion which is rightly understood. But
Maeterlinck's new book, which also deals with modern spiritual
science, shows that he does not see that spiritual science comes
to its results along paths which are quite different from those
of ordinary external science. That is why he adopts the
standpoint that spiritual science fails to supply proofs. What
kind of proofs does he expect? Proofs consisting in the very
things which must be cast aside when one enters the super-sensible
worlds! He confronts this in the same way in which one used to
confront the problem of the squaring of the circle. Until quite
recently, the almost yearly attempts to transform a circle into a
square covering the same surface never passed the test. The
Academy in Paris showed that such attempts cannot lead to any
results and that they must end in the wastepaper basket! If one
day a solution can really be found, it will somehow come to the
surface, but the Academicians declared that they could not waste
their time in checking all the calculations presented to them in
connection with the squaring of the circle, and people who still
try to tackle this problem are looked upon as amateurs, because
it is evidently impossible to solve it with the aid of
mathematics. Consequently one must say that at the present time
it is foolish to attempt to solve this problem of squaring the
circle.

Spiritual science
can easily show that in regard to super-sensible things people try
to square the circle in another sphere! Supersensible things have
to be treated in accordance with the methods described in
“Knowledge of the Higher Worlds”
and their demonstrations must be understood accordingly. Otherwise
one chases after problems which resemble that of the squaring of
the circle. One can find even today that the teaching of repeated
lives on earth is “more beautiful, pure, just, and
consoling,” more probable than others, and nevertheless
fail to recognize it. But it is possible to grasp it if one can
see that one cannot discuss it intellectually.

Supersensible
facts must, of course, be investigated by a spiritual
investigator, but when they have been investigated, they are
accessible to the ordinary intellect. To such truths one cannot
apply demonstrations which are obtained by ordinary means, but
only proofs such as those required for the understanding of a
painting by someone who is not a painter. The ordinary intellect
can examine the facts pertaining to the spiritual world and grasp
its characteristics. Under the ground there are mines and ores,
which cannot exist upon the surface of the earth, under the
direct influence of the sunlight. Similarly the results of
spiritual investigation cannot be found with the aid of ordinary
thought, or through ordinary science. For the investigation of
spiritual facts we need the soul forces described above. But when
the results of spiritual investigation are communicated, this is
the same as sunlight penetrating into the depths of the earth and
revealing the ores in all their beauty and refulgence.

The ordinary
intellect can therefore grasp the results of spiritual
investigation, but super-sensible facts can only be investigated
by a soul that undergoes the training described above. When we
thus grasp spiritual-scientific truths, we develop within the
soul a FORCE which gives us inner strength and support. Fruits
ripen within us, which appear as a definite way of thinking and
feeling, as a definite volitional attitude towards our own self
and the universe.

We have amply
explained all the obstacles which the soul must overcome in order
to enter the spheres where the spiritual world reveals itself in
its authentic form. We must pierce the darkness and at the
conclusion of this lecture we may accept the feelings which are
expressed in the following words. If the soul never flags, it
will finally come

Through difficult soul obstacles,
Through the chaos of spiritual darkness,
To earnest clarity,
To luminous truth.